In a study of general managers in industry, John Kotter reported that many of them worked 60 to 65 hours per week–which translates into at least six 10-hour days. The ability and willingness to work grueling hours has characterized many powerful figures… Energy and strength provide many advantages to those seeking to build power.

When Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi studied geniuses for his book Creativity, he realized something fascinating about IQ.

No one who changed the world had an IQ under 130 — but the difference between 130 and 170 was negligible.

As long as you were past the 130 IQ threshold, it was all about how hard you worked.

The best predictor of success, the researchers found, was the prospective cadets’ ratings on a noncognitive, nonphysical trait known as “grit”—defined as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals.”

Defined as perseverance and passion for long-term goals, grit accounted for an average of 4% of the variance in success outcomes, including educational attainment among 2 samples of adults (N = 1,545 and N = 690), grade point average among Ivy League undergraduates (N = 138), retention in 2 classes of United States Military Academy, West Point, cadets (N = 1,218 and N = 1,308), and ranking in the National Spelling Bee (N = 175).

Howard Gardner studied some of the greatest geniuses of all time. One quality they all had in common sounds an awful lot like grit.

…when they fail, they do not waste much time lamenting; blaming; or, at the extreme, quitting. Instead, regarding the failure as a learning experience, they try to build upon its lessons in their future endeavors. Framing is most succinctly captured in aphorism by French economist and visionary Jean Monnet: “I regard every defeat as an opportunity.”

Make Awesome Mistakes

Losers like to hear that because it makes them feel better about their past mistakes. Winners use it to go make more mistakes they can learn from.

Always be experimenting. In his excellent book Little Bets, Peter Simsexplains the system used by all the greats:

The mindset is what makes a big difference. The willingness to spend 5 to 10% of your time doing experiments will, over the long run, really open up that part of you that can be more creative and entrepreneurial, and yield, hopefully, some new opportunities that you hadn’t thought of before trying something.

Successful creators engage in an ongoing dialogue with their work. They put what’s in their head on paper long before it’s fully formed, and they watch and listen to what they’ve recorded, zigging and zagging until the right idea emerges.